S.S. Badger's future on Lake Michigan in doubt with federal pollution permit set to expire

4:27 PM, November 30, 2012

The S.S. Badger, which travels between Manitowoc, Wisc., and Ludington is a coal-fired ship that used to carry railroad cars between the two ports. Now, it carries passengers and vehicles. Here, it is seen unloading and loading passengers July 2010 while it is at dock in Manitowoc. / MARY SCHROEDER/Detroit Free Press

Detroit Free Press Washington Staff

WASHINGTON – A historic ferry that has shuttled passengers, vehicles and freight across Lake Michigan for decades is in the spotlight again with a federal permit allowing it to dump coal ash in Lake Michigan set to expire this month, and an effort to exempt the S.S. Badger from those rules in perpetuity under way in the nation’s capital.

The uncertainty is putting the future operations of the ferry in doubt.

On Friday, both the New York Times and the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel wrote about the Badger, the sole remaining coal-fired steamship in operation in the U.S. Sailing from Ludington to Manitowoc, Wis., it should be a quiet time of year for the 410-foot vessel operated by Lake Michigan Carferry, its May-to-October season concluded for the year.

But the operators of the Badger have been trying to convince the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to sign off on a new permit allowing the ship to dump some 500 tons of coal ash into the lake each year — which its critics say is more that the total waste dumped each year by the 125 other largest ships operating on the Great Lakes.

Last year, the Chicago Tribune wrote that federal records indicated that while the Badger was trying to negotiate for more time to find a cleaner way of operating the coal-fired ferry — including one proposal that its owners hoped would pan out to use natural gas for fuel — it continued to dump nearly 4 tons of material that included arsenic, lead, mercury and other toxic metals into Lake Michigan every day it sailed.

The current permit, which was issued in 2008 and expires Dec. 19, was intended to give the operators four years to find a cleaner solution for operating the vessel, which has morphed from serving mostly freight to ferrying tourists across the lake. In 2009, the Badger was placed on the National Register of Historic Places by the U.S. Department of the Interior.

And that designation has led to a fight in Washington: U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin, an Illinois Democrat, has vowed to block a provision placed inside a Coast Guard reauthorization bill that would protect the Badger’s right to operate under the current permit “without regard to any expiration dates.” In other words, as long as the Badger remains seaworthy, she can sail.

Friday’s story in the New York Times noted Durbin’s complaint that the provision — authored by U.S. Rep. Bill Huizenga, a Zeeland Republican whose district includes Ludington — constituted an earmark, a bit of congressionally directed language aimed at helping out a specific company or project. Huizenga and his allies say the provision, tucked inside the Coast Guard reauthorization bill last year, should not be considered an earmark because it does not touch on any fiscal issue or spend any federal money.

The Times story also noted what it called the “curious language” of the provision, which never mentions the Badger by name, but provides that any vessel “on or nominated for inclusion on the list of National Historic Landmarks” should be able to operate outside the expiration date of its permit.

Any suggestion that the authors of the provision tried to slip it in unnoticed is countered by the fact that it was discussed openly on the floor of the U.S. House in November 2011, with Huizenga and U.S. Reps. Dan Benishek, R-Crystal Falls, and Tom Petri, R-Wis., mentioning the Badger prominently by name.

“The Badger is currently operating under special rules developed by the EPA in 2008,” Huizenga said, according to the Congressional Record. “These rules are set to expire at the end of 2012. Without certainty provided by this amendment, the Badger could very easily, frankly, be forced off the Great Lakes at the end of 2012.”

The amendment passed without any opponents — Democrat or Republican — asking to be recognized to speak. But when the legislation went to the Senate, it was pulled out of the bill, setting the stage for the current negotiations over whether it should be included or not.

As of this summer, officials with the ferry company were asking that they be given more time to continue operating and dumping coal ash while they looked for an affordable solution. In one letter to the EPA, they asked to be given through 2014 to investigate the prospect of converting to liquid natural gas, a move Durbin has already questioned as possibly unrealistic, and if that doesn’t pan out, moving to more efficient coal burners by the 2016 sailing season.

The EPA didn’t immediately return calls or e-mails to the Free Press about what will happen if the Badger loses its permit Dec. 19 and if the Coast Guard reauthorization does not include the provision. Earlier this year, however, Huizenga wrote that even the EPA had ruled in the past that the Badger’s coal ash was “nonhazardous” and that the company is asking for only time “to develop and implement what would be the cleanest operating vessel on the Great Lakes.”

Terri Brown, spokeswoman for the company that operates the vessel, declined to comment about what happens next in Congress or with the EPA, saying only that the owners “are pursuing all of our options and are very confident that we will be sailing in 2013."